Your Take On The ISIS Phenomenon

[seemslikeadream]

Elimination of oil produce and refinery facilities of the ISIS in the territory of Syria...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNSI2q6 ... e=youtu.be

[Elvis]

I'm curious about the German journalist Christoph Reuter, who wrote the April Der Spiegel article which formed the basis of the Guardian story posted by Semper, quoted below.

Can Christoph Reuter's reporting be trusted, much? He publishes a lot about Mideast affairs, and appears on YouTube a lot—but the videos are all in German (which I don't understand). I ask because I recently read his April Der Spiegel story, and the found/captured documents it presents, are interesting—if true.

Anyone in Germany (MacCruiskeen?) or anyone else know anything about Herr Reuter?

I'd also be interested in Alice's opinions, if any, about Reuter and his Der Spiegel story, linked again here:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html

The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State
By Christoph Reuter

Former Saddam Hussein spy masterminded the rise of Isis, says report

Documents uncovered in Aleppo show that Haji Bakr drew up the ‘blueprint for caliphate’ after being jailed by the US authorities, according to Der Spiegel

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/former-saddam-spy-masterminded-the-rise-of-islamic-state-says-report

One of Saddam Hussein’s former intelligence officers masterminded Islamic State’s takeover of northern Syria after becoming embittered by the US-led invasion of Iraq, according to a report by the German magazine Der Spiegel

Documents uncovered in Syria reveal meticulous planning for the group’s structure and organisation, the report says, with the 31 pages of handwritten charts, lists and schedules amounting to a blueprint for the establishment of a caliphate in Syria.

The documents were the work of a man identified by the magazine as Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, a former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein’s air defence force, who went by the pseudonym Haji Bakr, Spiegel says.

The files suggest that the takeover of northern Syria was part of a meticulous plan overseen by Haji Bakr using techniques – including surveillance, espionage, murder and kidnapping – honed in the security apparatus of Saddam Hussein.

Bakr was “bitter and unemployed” after the US authorities in Iraq disbanded the army by decree in 2003, the article says. Between 2006 to 2008 he was reportedly in US detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib prison.

The Iraqi national was reportedly killed in a firefight with Syrian rebels in January 2014, but not before he had helped secure swathes of Syria, which in turn strengthened Islamic State’s position in neighbouring Iraq.

“What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover,” the story by Spiegel reporter Christoph Reuter says.

“It was not a manifesto of faith, but a technically precise plan for an ‘Islamic Intelligence State’ – a caliphate run by an organisation that resembled East Germany’s notorious Stasi domestic intelligence agency.”

Between 2006 to 2008, Bakr was reportedly in US detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib prison.

In 2010, however, Bakr and a small group of former Iraqi intelligence officers made another former US detainee, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the official leader of Islamic State, with the goal of giving the group a “religious face”, the report says.

Two years later, the magazine says, Bakr travelled to northern Syria to oversee his takeover plan, choosing to launch it with a collection of foreign fighters that included novice militants from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Europe alongside battle-tested Chechens and Uzbeks.

Iraqi journalist Hisham al-Hashimi, whose cousin served with Bakr, describes the former officer as a nationalist rather than an Islamist. The report argues that the secret to Islamic State’s success lies in its combination of opposites – the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of another, led by Bakr.

Spiegel said it had obtained the papers after lengthy negotiations with rebels in the Syrian city of Aleppo, who had seized them when Islamic State was forced to abandon its headquarters there in early 2014.

[Nordic]

FWIW.

http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/12/ma ... rs-of.html

Saudi Arabia’s Top Cleric Says Daesh Militants Are 'Israeli Soldiers'
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00:19 30.12.2015(updated 00:20 30.12.2015)
Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Sheikh urged increased Islamic cooperation against Daesh, claiming that the militant group was a “part of the Israeli army.”
File Photo: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, meets with Saudi King Salman, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
© AP PHOTO/ SPA, FILE
Saudi Arabia, Turkey Agree to Set Up Strategic Cooperation Council
The Mufti's statements followed remarks attributed to secretive Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a 24-minute audio recording released last week. In the recording Al-Baghdadi called the new Saudi-led alliance a US ‘puppy' and threatened to turn Israel into a "graveyard," saying Daesh has "not forgotten Palestine for a single moment."
During a telephone interview with the Saudi Gazette, Al Sheikh spoke in support of an Islamic anti-terrorism military alliance and vowed to defeat the Daesh extremists, claiming that the actions of the violent religious group are heretical and un-Islamic.
"They cannot be considered as followers of Islam," he said. "Rather, they are an extension of Kharijites, who rose in revolt against the Islamic caliphate for the first time by labeling Muslims as infidels and permitting their bloodletting."
As for al Baghdadi's pledge to attack Israel, the 72-year old Al Sheikh said that it was a lie and that Daesh jihadists were part of Israeli army.
"Actually Daesh is part of the Israeli soldiers," he stated, asserting an alliance between the Israeli army and Daesh militants.
The pronouncements by both Al Sheikh and al-Baghdadi make it obvious that Israel remains a politically charged issue in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia on December 15 announced the formation of a coalition to counter terrorism, created by Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Prince Muhammed bin Salman. Member states include Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Gulf Arab and several African states.


Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151 ... z3vlBdyOxm

[AlicetheKurious]

I'm curious about the German journalist Christoph Reuter, who wrote the April Der Spiegel article which formed the basis of the Guardian story posted by Semper, quoted below.

Can Christoph Reuter's reporting be trusted, much? He publishes a lot about Mideast affairs, and appears on YouTube a lot—but the videos are all in German (which I don't understand). I ask because I recently read his April Der Spiegel story, and the found/captured documents it presents, are interesting—if true.

Anyone in Germany (MacCruiskeen?) or anyone else know anything about Herr Reuter?

I'd also be interested in Alice's opinions, if any, about Reuter and his Der Spiegel story, linked again here:

This isn't Mr. Reuter, but it's a safe bet that any prominent German reporter who "publishes a lot about Mideast affairs, and appears on YouTube a lot" is a CIA disinfo asset/spy.

[AlicetheKurious]

Together, Reuters and Associated Press supply almost all the "news" content of Western media.

[Elvis]

I'm curious about the German journalist Christoph Reuter, who wrote the April Der Spiegel article which formed the basis of the Guardian story posted by Semper, quoted below.

Can Christoph Reuter's reporting be trusted, much? He publishes a lot about Mideast affairs, and appears on YouTube a lot—but the videos are all in German (which I don't understand). I ask because I recently read his April Der Spiegel story, and the found/captured documents it presents, are interesting—if true.

Anyone in Germany (MacCruiskeen?) or anyone else know anything about Herr Reuter?

I'd also be interested in Alice's opinions, if any, about Reuter and his Der Spiegel story, linked again here:

This isn't Mr. Reuter, but it's a safe bet that any prominent German reporter who "publishes a lot about Mideast affairs, and appears on YouTube a lot" is a CIA disinfo asset/spy.

Argh! I had forgotten about that story, "Ulfkotte shocked viewers by stating he and countless other reporters — in Europe, the US, and basically every other country in the world — are bought mouthpieces for the CIA." Christoph Reuter fits the mold, and no reason why a Der Spiegel editor or two wouldn't fit as well.

[Nordic]

Kinda weird his name is Reuter.

[Nordic]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/research ... 28950.html

Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey Links
Nov 09, 2014 | Updated 1 day ago

David L. Phillips Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights, Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Research Paper: ISIS-Turkey Links

By David L. Phillips


Introduction

Is Turkey collaborating with the Islamic State (ISIS)? Allegations range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services. It is also alleged that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS attacks against Kobani.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu strongly deny complicity with ISIS. Erdogan visited the Council on Foreign Relations on September 22, 2014. He criticized "smear campaigns [and] attempts to distort perception about us." Erdogan decried, "A systematic attack on Turkey's international reputation, "complaining that "Turkey has been subject to very unjust and ill-intentioned news items from media organizations." Erdogan posited: "My request from our friends in the United States is to make your assessment about Turkey by basing your information on objective sources."

Columbia University's Program on Peace-building and Rights assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media, assessing the credibility of allegations. This report draws on a variety of international sources -- The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News, as well as Turkish sources, CNN Turk, Hurriyet Daily News, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, and Radikal among others.


Allegations

Turkey Provides Military Equipment to ISIS

• An ISIS commander told The Washington Post on August 12, 2014: "Most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies."

• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party (CHP), produced a statement from the Adana Office of the Prosecutor on October 14, 2014 maintaining that Turkey supplied weapons to terror groups. He also produced interview transcripts from truck drivers who delivered weapons to the groups. According to Kiliçdaroglu, the Turkish government claims the trucks were for humanitarian aid to the Turkmen, but the Turkmen said no humanitarian aid was delivered.

• According to CHP Vice President Bulent Tezcan, three trucks were stopped in Adana for inspection on January 19, 2014. The trucks were loaded with weapons in Esenboga Airport in Ankara. The drivers drove the trucks to the border, where a MIT agent was supposed to take over and drive the trucks to Syria to deliver materials to ISIS and groups in Syria. This happened many times. When the trucks were stopped, MIT agents tried to keep the inspectors from looking inside the crates. The inspectors found rockets, arms, and ammunitions.

• Cumhuriyet reports that Fuat Avni, a preeminent Twitter user who reported on the December 17th corruption probe, that audio tapes confirm that Turkey provided financial and military aid to terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda on October 12, 2014. On the tapes, Erdogan pressured the Turkish Armed Forces to go to war with Syria. Erdogan demanded that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (MIT), come up with a justification for attacking Syria.

• Hakan Fidan told Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Yasar Guler, a senior defense official, and Feridun Sinirlioglu, a senior foreign affairs official: "If need be, I'll send 4 men into Syria. I'll formulate a reason to go to war by shooting 8 rockets into Turkey; I'll have them attack the Tomb of Suleiman Shah."

• Documents surfaced on September 19th, 2014 showing that the Saudi Emir Bender Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey. A flight leaving Germany dropped off arms in the Etimesgut airport in Turkey, which was then split into three containers, two of which were given to ISIS and one to Gaza.

Turkey Provided Transport and Logistical Assistance to ISIS Fighters

• According to Radikal on June 13, 2014, Interior Minister Muammar Guler signed a directive: "According to our regional gains, we will help al-Nusra militants against the branch of PKK terrorist organization, the PYD, within our borders...Hatay is a strategic location for the mujahideen crossing from within our borders to Syria. Logistical support for Islamist groups will be increased, and their training, hospital care, and safe passage will mostly take place in Hatay...MIT and the Religious Affairs Directorate will coordinate the placement of fighters in public accommodations."
• The Daily Mail reported on August 25, 2014 that many foreign militants joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq after traveling through Turkey, but Turkey did not try to stop them. This article describes how foreign militants, especially from the UK, go to Syria and Iraq through the Turkish border. They call the border the "Gateway to Jihad." Turkish army soldiers either turn a blind eye and let them pass, or the jihadists pay the border guards as little as $10 to facilitate their crossing.

• Britain's Sky News obtained documents showing that the Turkish government has stamped passports of foreign militants seeking to cross the Turkey border into Syria to join ISIS.

• The BBC interviewed villagers, who claim that buses travel at night, carrying jihadists to fight Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, not the Syrian Armed Forces.

• A senior Egyptian official indicated on October 9, 2014 that Turkish intelligence is passing satellite imagery and other data to ISIS.

Turkey Provided Training to ISIS Fighters

• CNN Turk reported on July 29, 2014 that in the heart of Istanbul, places like Duzce and Adapazari, have become gathering spots for terrorists. There are religious orders where ISIS militants are trained. Some of these training videos are posted on the Turkish ISIS propaganda website takvahaber.net. According to CNN Turk, Turkish security forces could have stopped these developments if they had wanted to.

• Turks who joined an affiliate of ISIS were recorded at a public gathering in Istanbul, which took place on July 28, 2014.

• A video shows an ISIS affiliate holding a prayer/gathering in Omerli, a district of Istanbul. In response to the video, CHP Vice President, MP Tanrikulu submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of the Interior, Efkan Ala, asking questions such as, "Is it true that a camp or camps have been allocated to an affiliate of ISIS in Istanbul? What is this affiliate? Who is it made up of? Is the rumor true that the same area allocated for the camp is also used for military exercises?"

• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu warned the AKP government not to provide money and training to terror groups on October 14, 2014. He said, "It isn't right for armed groups to be trained on Turkish soil. You bring foreign fighters to Turkey, put money in their pockets, guns in their hands, and you ask them to kill Muslims in Syria. We told them to stop helping ISIS. Ahmet Davutoglu asked us to show proof. Everyone knows that they're helping ISIS." (See HERE and HERE.)

• According to Jordanian intelligence, Turkey trained ISIS militants for special operations.

Turkey Offers Medical Care to ISIS Fighters

• An ISIS commander told the Washington Post on August 12, 2014, "We used to have some fighters -- even high-level members of the Islamic State -- getting treated in Turkish hospitals."

• Taraf reported on October 12, 2014 that Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, a founder of the AKP, said that Turkey supported terrorist groups and still supports them and treats them in hospitals. "In order to weaken the developments in Rojova (Syrian Kurdistan), the government gave concessions and arms to extreme religious groups...the government was helping the wounded. The Minister of Health said something such as, it's a human obligation to care for the ISIS wounded."

• According to Taraf, Ahmet El H, one of the top commanders at ISIS and Al Baghdadi's right hand man, was treated at a hospital in Sanliurfa, Turkey, along with other ISIS militants. The Turkish state paid for their treatment. According to Taraf's sources, ISIS militants are being treated in hospitals all across southeastern Turkey. More and more militants have been coming in to be treated since the start of airstrikes in August. To be more specific, eight ISIS militants were transported through the Sanliurfa border crossing; these are their names: "Mustafa A., Yusuf El R., Mustafa H., Halil El M., Muhammet El H., Ahmet El S., Hasan H., [and] Salim El D."

Turkey Supports ISIS Financially Through Purchase of Oil

• On September 13, 2014, The New York Times reported on the Obama administration's efforts to pressure Turkey to crack down on ISIS extensive sales network for oil. James Phillips, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argues that Turkey has not fully cracked down on ISIS's sales network because it benefits from a lower price for oil, and that there might even be Turks and government officials who benefit from the trade.

• Fehim Taştekin wrote in Radikal on September 13, 2014 about illegal pipelines transporting oil from Syria to nearby border towns in Turkey. The oil is sold for as little as 1.25 liras per liter. Taştekin indicated that many of these illegal pipelines were dismantled after operating for 3 years, once his article was published.

• According to Diken and OdaTV, David Cohen, a Justice Department official, says that there are Turkish individuals acting as middlemen to help sell ISIS's oil through Turkey.

• On October 14, 2014, a German Parliamentarian from the Green Party accused Turkey of allowing the transportation of arms to ISIS over its territory, as well as the sale of oil.

Turkey Assists ISIS Recruitment

• Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu claimed on October 14, 2014 that ISIS offices in Istanbul and Gaziantep are used to recruit fighters. On October 10, 2014, the mufti of Konya said that 100 people from Konya joined ISIS 4 days ago. (See HERE and HERE.)

• OdaTV reports that Takva Haber serves as a propaganda outlet for ISIS to recruit Turkish-speaking individuals in Turkey and Germany. The address where this propaganda website is registered corresponds to the address of a school called Irfan Koleji, which was established by Ilim Yayma Vakfi, a foundation that was created by Erdogan and Davutoglu, among others. It is thus claimed that the propaganda site is operated from the school of the foundation started by AKP members.

• Minister of Sports, Suat Kilic, an AKP member, visited Salafi jihadists who are ISIS supporters in Germany. The group is known for reaching out to supporters via free Quran distributions and raising funds to sponsor suicide attacks in Syria and Iraq by raising money.

• OdaTV released a video allegedly showing ISIS militants riding a bus in Istanbul.

Turkish Forces Are Fighting Alongside ISIS

• On October 7, 2014, IBDA-C, a militant Islamic organization in Turkey, pledged support to ISIS. A Turkish friend who is a commander in ISIS suggests that Turkey is "involved in all of this" and that "10,000 ISIS members will come to Turkey." A Huda-Par member at the meeting claims that officials criticize ISIS but in fact sympathize with the group (Huda-Par, the "Free Cause Party", is a Kurdish Sunni fundamentalist political party). BBP member claims that National Action Party (MHP) officials are close to embracing ISIS. In the meeting, it is asserted that ISIS militants come to Turkey frequently to rest, as though they are taking a break from military service. They claim that Turkey will experience an Islamic revolution, and Turks should be ready for jihad. (See HERE and HERE.)

• Seymour Hersh maintains in the London Review of Books that ISIS conducted sarin attacks in Syria, and that Turkey was informed. "For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria's neighbors, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. 'We knew there were some in the Turkish government,' a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, 'who believed they could get Assad's nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria - and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat."

• On September 20, 2014, Demir Celik, a Member of Parliament with the people's democratic party (HDP) claimed that Turkish Special Forces fight with ISIS.

Turkey Helped ISIS in Battle for Kobani

• Anwar Moslem, Mayor of Kobani, said on September 19, 2014: "Based on the intelligence we got two days before the breakout of the current war, trains full of forces and ammunition, which were passing by north of Kobane, had an-hour-and-ten-to-twenty-minute-long stops in these villages: Salib Qaran, Gire Sor, Moshrefat Ezzo. There are evidences, witnesses, and videos about this. Why is ISIS strong only in Kobane's east? Why is it not strong either in its south or west? Since these trains stopped in villages located in the east of Kobane, we guess they had brought ammunition and additional force for the ISIS." In the second article on September 30, 2014, a CHP delegation visited Kobani, where locals claimed that everything from the clothes ISIS militants wear to their guns comes from Turkey. (See HERE and HERE.)

• Released by Nuhaber, a video shows Turkish military convoys carrying tanks and ammunition moving freely under ISIS flags in the Cerablus region and Karkamis border crossing (September 25, 2014). There are writings in Turkish on the trucks.

• Salih Muslim, PYD head, claims that 120 militants crossed into Syria from Turkey between October 20th and 24th, 2014.

• According to an op-ed written by a YPG commander in The New York Times on October 29, 2014, Turkey allows ISIS militants and their equipment to pass freely over the border.

• Diken reported, "ISIS fighters crossed the border from Turkey into Syria, over the Turkish train tracks that delineate the border, in full view of Turkish soldiers. They were met there by PYD fighters and stopped."

• A Kurdish commander in Kobani claims that ISIS militants have Turkish entry stamps on their passports.

• Kurds trying to join the battle in Kobani are turned away by Turkish police at the Turkey-Syrian border.

• OdaTV released a photograph of a Turkish soldier befriending ISIS militants.

Turkey and ISIS Share a Worldview

• RT reports on Vice President Joe Biden's remarks detailing Turkish support to ISIS.

• According to the Hurriyet Daily News on September 26, 2014, "The feelings of the AKP's heavyweights are not limited to Ankara. I was shocked to hear words of admiration for ISIL from some high-level civil servants even in Şanliurfa. 'They are like us, fighting against seven great powers in the War of Independence,' one said." "Rather than the [Kurdistan Workers' Party] PKK on the other side, I would rather have ISIL as a neighbor," said another."

• Cengiz Candar, a well-respected Turkish journalist, maintained that MIT helped "midwife" the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, as well as other Jihadi groups.

• An AKP council member posted on his Facebook page: "Thankfully ISIS exists... May you never run out of ammunition..."

• A Turkish Social Security Institution supervisor uses the ISIS logo in internal correspondences.

• Bilal Erdogan and Turkish officials meet alleged ISIS fighters.

Mr. Phillips is Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He served as a Senior Adviser and Foreign Affairs Expert for the U.S. Department of State.

[Nordic]

[backtoiam]

Mass Media Introduces Artificial Pause In Mass Shootings and ISIS to Focus On U.S. Election
March 16, 2016
Op-Ed by Bernie Suarez



Breaking news, did you notice there have been no crisis actor mass shootings sucking up all the news attention over the past several weeks? And not even one major ISIS psyop front-page story? Like Ebola in 2014 and the recent Zika virus failed psyop, these stories have conveniently gone away, at least for now, and perhaps only for a short while while the media focuses on the election campaigns.

ISIS, often portrayed by Western media as the most powerful, most evasive, most mobile and most versatile military fighting force ever to step foot on planet earth is apparently so good at what they do that they even know how to be respectful of U.S. politics and events.

And the mass shooters of the world, who always seem to schedule their shootings on days that the U.S. federal agents have simultaneous “drills”, also seem very respectful of the U.S. political race. All the fake Adam Lanzas of the world and the San Bernardino-style ethnic couples who magically morph themselves from “3 white tall males” in military gear back to their natural selves seem to know that scheduling a mass shooting would be disruptive of other big events like scheduled presidential debates and key campaign races.

Do you know anyone on the edge of reality versus fiction, slowly becoming aware of what’s happening? Do you know someone finally discerning the difference between the mainstream media-Hollywood 2-dimensional reality versus the full-dimensional organic reality often covered by independent news? Then show them that it’s not just the staged politically driven “news” stories that they need to be aware of, it’s also the politically convenient deliberate emphasis on certain stories while conveniently and deliberately flipping the off switch for other stories. Show them that we are seeing a grand example of this convenient selection of stories right now during the election campaign script.

In the tale that mainstream media is telling us right now, it’s “election year” and the left-right paradigm election campaign puppet show is underway where the candidates get to exchange juicy attacks and people are pulled into the drama deciding who to vote for. The controllers obviously feel that the races deserve their time and space; and from their perspective it wouldn’t be very helpful to have a pack of disruptive mass shootings, false flags, and massive staged events in the way of their political campaign shows.

Beware, however, of political campaign momentum pauses, these could be showered with “new” strategically convenient events any day now. The point of all this is that there IS a timing and placement for these stories. And we should all be aware of this timing because it’s happening before our very eyes right now.

In a year guaranteed to be packed with staged events the timing of these “events” are very important to watch. We all saw how perfect the timing of the Paris shootings was coordinated with the G-20 Summit meeting in Turkey and the U.N. Climate Convention in Paris. A shooting “event” that once again a key witness, like the lead singer of the heavy metal band that was there, says the event was preceded by security acting with suspicious foreknowledge. Oops, did I say that? I forget that the “key witness” completely changed his mind about what he saw for himself in real-time the day it was all happening just 48 hours later.

I’ve said it many times. We are now living in a staged reality and we have to keep our brains active and continue exercising our intuition and awareness as we see the daily flow of stories that are all intended to be deceptive and artificial 2-dimensional clips, images and soundbites for your mind. There is so little left by way of organic spontaneity that if we don’t regularly analyze the flow of mainstream information and test it for the element of “natural flow” we risk falling for their psychological operations.
New psyops on the rise

Please take note. Look at what the mainstream writers are saying about truth and freedom loving “conspiracy theorists”. I want readers to take careful note of comments being regularly posted by online trolls and government shills. Notice one of the new terms being frequently used is “disinformation”. Yes, articles and videos produced by longstanding truth seekers and researchers exposing the control system’s psyops are now labeled “disinformation” by online trolls, a word we would normally use to describe their lies. (think Jade Helm AI please)

Many truth seekers themselves may not be noticing how the trolls are getting exponentially more aggressive trying to sound like the “new” truth seekers who are humbly and sincerely believing mainstream media “honest” and “spontaneous” news. (Not kidding)

Often truth seekers don’t notice this because they don’t take these trolls seriously or are immune to online trolls; but it is always fascinating, not to mention important, to gauge exactly the nature of their attacks.

That said, think of 2016 as a script and ask yourself – what part of the script are we living out right now and why? We find ourselves in a game of what will happen next? Normally that would not be a healthy way to live your life but anyone paying attention probably knows there is no other way to live a healthy life than to be fully aware of the control system’s agenda designed to conquer humanity first, before carrying on with personal goals, solutions and accomplishments. Likewise, one cannot focus ONLY on the problems without seeking and applying solutions and strategies to solve the problem.

So it’s awareness and truth first, THEN focus on solutions and goals. I believe this is the model for everyone to live by. To deliberately tune out the truth and awareness of the problems of our world today in order to focus on your own little world, while it may be necessary for that individual, I believe it is an ignorant and potentially dangerous suggestion for the masses to follow given the nature and potential of the enemy who is oppressing humanity.
What’s coming in 2016?

Naturally the question then is – what should we be on the lookout for, moving forward in 2016? None of us know with 100 percent certainty exactly what the controllers have planned next, but based on the narratives they have been pushing the last few months and looking at the 2016 schedule, I see that many writers especially in alternative media are suggesting an inevitable financial collapse is coming. Though we have been hearing this for years, it’s hard to argue with this prediction. A collapse could give the Obama administration the continuation of government (COG) they need to keep the White House longer.
10 Strategies to Survive and Thrive During Economic Collapse - Subscribe To Get Your Free Copy

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We are also teetering on the start of WW3 in Syria, a battle many argue has already begun and in many ways I personally agree. The rhetoric being ratcheted up against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea makes it very clear that the West is pushing for a WW3 scenario perhaps out of frustration and desperation stemming from a rush to get their new world order done and/or from all of their ISIS failures and their failures to outright invade Syria.
What About the Next Event?

I believe the next or one of the next big staged crisis actor shooting “events” will take place in a hospital. There have been many signs and clues, in my opinion, pointing to a hospital-based shooting where they will be able to entirely control all the “evidence” with the usual convenient 2-dimensional photos, short video clips and “testimonies” from the “witnesses”.

Think about it, a hospital setting for a crisis actor event could be a dream come true for those running the event and wishing to “control” the “dis-information” like Lt Paul Vance at Sandy Hook. They will claim the need to maintain “patient privacy” as the reason for not showing you the evidence. Unlike Sandy Hook – where there was no evidence whatsoever of anyone being medically attended to and therefore no genuine doctor, nurse, paramedic or other rescue worker stories of heroic CPR, surgery or transfusions – in the hospital-based staged event they will be able to insert many of these images and “evidence” into the story. They will probably be able to videotape ahead of time an entire CPR event or surgical event as “proof” for future Sandy Hook-style crisis actor family victims lawsuits. (think money $$!) It’s pathetic, absurd and even frightening that we have to anticipate such scenarios in the future, but unfortunately it’s the artificial reality world we now live in.
What else can we expect in 2016?

Keep in mind, according to documents revealed about Jade Helm last year (in 2015) we are all subjects in a mass sociological A.I. experiment whose goal is to master the human domain. Don’t think for a minute the A.I. software is not gauging the pros and cons of different future false flag scenarios.

Advice – When trying to guess what’s coming up in the year, always work your way backwards. Figure out what their agenda is first, then fill in the blank. We know the controllers need to keep pushing for their world government ruled by the West, so we can expect more secret trade agreements and continued push for draconian carbon tax legislation forcing new punishments on individuals and nation states that don’t comply. Did you think they were pushing Al Gore’s global warming hoax all these years for nothing?

We can also expect industries like the vaccine industry to keep pushing scenarios they will use to fund legislation for mandatory vaccination.

ISIS is one of their most precious wild cards that they are able to use in many different ways to push almost any agenda. Did anyone notice ISIS was mentioned this weekend in the context of promoting “birth control“? Yes, the ISIS political tool has literally no limits. Stories like these are a reminder that they are eager and waiting to INSERT ISIS into any of this year’s upcoming staged events.

Want to stay informed on what events are coming next? It’s probably a good idea to stay informed of key U.N., Senate and Congressional votes coming up. For example let’s keep an eye for Senators who are pushing Congress to pass legislation for authorization of unlimited military force (AUMF) against ISIS. Likely as this gets closer we can expect ISIS to resurface in a major way Paris-shooting style. Where they will stage this “ISIS” event while ISIS is being destroyed by Russia in the real world is anyone’s guess.

Let’s get better at predicting and anticipating their events by gauging and tracking the timing of their events. There is a method to their madness. All we need to do is disconnect from their 2-dimensional artificial mainstream media reality and stay tuned to the real world. If you agree and understand please share this message.
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/03/mas ... ction.html

[backtoiam]

I expect this sort of stuff to become a pattern at some time in the future.

Local authorities, feds investigating alleged ISIL 'kill list' for Minnesota law enforcement
Caliphate Cyber Army released names; FBI is investigating threat.
By Libor Jany Star Tribune


An alleged ISIL "kill list" containing the personal information of dozens of Minnesota law enforcement officers is the focus of an investigation by state and federal agencies.

The list, purportedly created by a group of hackers affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, includes the names, addresses and telephone numbers of officers from across Minnesota. Authorities acknowledge that they are still gauging the seriousness of the threat posed by the group, which calls itself the Caliphate Cyber Army.

The personal information of at least 36 law enforcement officers — apparently including a Sauk Rapids police officer, five St. Paul police officers and a St. Louis County sheriff's deputy — along with instructions to kill were recently posted on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, according to news reports and screenshots of the list obtained by the Star Tribune. The screenshots depict what appears to be an ISIL logo superimposed over a photo of masked fighters. Along with the personal information, the message says "Wanted to be killed."

"It is on our radar and we have been working with the various agencies which have been both named and unnamed," FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said of the list. "We're proceeding forward with this matter and treating it as a serious threat."

Loven said that agents from the FBI's Minneapolis field office began working this week with several local agencies to track down the hackers.

The FBI is "trying to make certain that law enforcement officers have the appropriate information" regarding the activities of the group, Loven said. The group has posted similar threats against security and law enforcement officials.

The state Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that it was conducting its own investigations into the online posts, but referred further questions to the FBI. The list's existence was first reported on Monday by the website Vocativ. According to the Vocativ report, the full list was recently posted on Telegram, which the extremist group frequently uses for propaganda and crowdfunding money for arms.

St. Paul police officials say that five of the officers identified have ties to the department — four are on active duty and one is retired. The department is working closely with the FBI to assess the threat from the group.

"We're doing everything that we can to ensure the safety of the officers," said department spokesman Steve Linders, adding that it's unclear whether any of them have been reassigned since the list was released.

Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University's Program on Extremism, said the group, a "known commodity online," has used similar "doxing tactics" to publish the home addresses of U.S. military personnel "with the implied and explicit calls for violence against them." Hughes said the group also recently targeted New Jersey Transit police. The group of self-identifying ISIL supporters hasn't been publicly linked to any known failed or foiled extremist plots. Little else is known about the group's members, he said.

Loven wouldn't comment on how many names appeared on the list and which law enforcement agencies were included. The Vocativ report suggested that most of the named officers were from the Twin Cities area.

While some local authorities said that they were aggressively investigating the online postings given the seriousness of the threat, they cautioned against reading too much into the list, which some saw as propaganda intended to sow fear and confusion. Several officials pointed to other recent jihadi-linked threats against local targets, including one earlier this year when the extremist group Al-Shabab called for attacks on the Mall of America and other western malls, which never materialized.

Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said the department was aware of the list but declined to comment further since none of its officers appeared to have been targeted. The Hennepin County Sheriff's office declined to comment.

http://www.startribune.com/fbi-investig ... 372138411/

[semper occultus]

The age of hyper-terrorism

Jihadis, spectacular mass-casualty attacks and the myth of an apocalyptic new world order.

BY JOHN GRAY 5 APRIL 2016

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/04/age-hyper-terrorism

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on 13 February, the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, announced the arrival of an age of unprecedented terror. “We have entered . . . a new era characterised by the lasting presence of ‘hyper-terrorism’ . . . There will be attacks. Large-scale attacks. It’s a certainty. This hyper-terrorism is here to stay. The force of the ideological fascination is formidable, and if we have changed era it is because this hyper-terrorism is in the heart of our societies.”

The attacks on Brussels Airport and on a Metro station during rush hour in the Belgian capital on 22 March show the extreme difficulty of protecting soft targets in open societies. Some will argue that, harbouring a much higher proportion of jihadis than other European countries, Belgium has once again been shown to be a black hole in European security. As it took four months to apprehend Salah Abdeslam, the chief surviving suspect in the November 2015 Paris attacks, who was hiding in plain sight in the Brussels borough of Molenbeek, that suggestion may not be unreasonable. But the danger is not confined to any single country, and these atrocities will surely not be the last.

The conditions that produced the co-ordinated assault on Paris and Brussels have not changed. One of the triggers for the attacks has been setbacks for Isis on the ground in Syria. Since Palmyra – until now a symbol of the seemingly unstoppable advance of Isis – has been retaken by Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Russian firepower, there must be a prospect of further mass-casualty operations against European cities. Linking guerrilla-style warfare with spectacular urban terror is one of the group’s trademarks and a feature of the hyper-terrorism that it practises. Occurring only four days after Belgian police finally captured Abdeslam, the Brussels attacks may have been acts of reprisal or defiance. The two suicide bombers whom Belgian law-enforcement officials have named as the perpetrators of the airport attack were already under suspicion for involvement in the November attacks in Paris. Whatever occasioned the most recent actions, Isis has claimed responsibility for all of these atro­cities, and will go on practising its brand of terrorism in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Unlike the IRA, hyper-terrorists are moved not by the prospect of achieving any concrete goals but by apocalyptic myths of a new world. Because this vision is unrealisable, hyper-terrorism will continue in some form for as long as the groups that practise it continue to function as effective forces.

Yet if hyper-terrorism seems sure to be a lasting presence, this is not just because of current conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The roots of violent jihadism lie in aspects of contemporary life that prevailing theories of modernisation – which have guided the West’s disastrous interventions in Muslim-majority countries – ignore or deny. According to these theories, Islamic societies are engaged in a struggle to catch up with the West. The journey may be long and arduous but there is no alternative. To modernise means to replicate the course of development that culminated in the liberal-democratic nation state. Once this process has been repeated in Islamic societies, the jihadist threat will diminish and eventually disappear.

Some such theory informs the faddish discourse of radicalisation, which tells us that people join Isis and similar jihadist groups because they have been brainwashed. Indoctrinated into extremist beliefs, they embark on a career of savagery and terror that they would never otherwise have envisioned. Prised out from their own societies, they then throw away their lives in the service of a suicide cult. But it is a cult that has set itself against the modern world, and all it can do is revel in nihilistic violence.

This is a frightening picture, but it is also decidedly optimistic. If the young men and women who leave the London suburbs and the banlieue of Paris to fight in Syria or Iraq have been indoctrinated, the problem can be solved by re-educating them. Like children who have been abducted by a freakish sect, they can be deprogrammed and reintegrated into the mainstream. In this comforting story, jihadism is a roadblock standing in the way of what Barack Obama has called “the arc of history”. Liberal values show the direction in which all of humankind wants to move. Once the roadblock has been removed, the normal course of progress can resume.

One difficulty with this reassuring story is that it passes over the role of Western policies in creating the conditions from which Isis emerged. Much of the ruling elite of Isis was recruited from the secular Ba’ath Party, in the vacuum the Americans created when they dismantled the state of Iraq shortly after invading the country. Equally, the Western policy of promoting regime change in Syria has had the effect of strengthening Isis (in part by relying on exaggerated or non-existent “moderate forces”). And toppling Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya has created a zone of anarchy from which jihadists can operate freely, and through which hundreds of thousands more desperate migrants may flow into Europe this summer.


But there is a still larger flaw in the ­ruling narrative, in which terrorism will wither away as the Middle East modernises. The belief that underpins Western policies, which holds that the overthrow of despots allows a popular embrace of liberal values, is groundless. Liberal democracy is not the modern norm and everything else a temporary aberration. The modern world has been as fertile in producing tyrannies as democracies, if not more so, and there is no reason why this should cease to be the case in future.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has been followed not by any sort of liberal regime, but by a hypermodern autocracy that has achieved high levels of popular support by promoting Russian nationalism and Orthodoxy through skilful use of the media. Demonstrating a capacity for framing and implementing policies with defined and realisable goals that no Western government has displayed in the Middle East, it is this autocracy that, with a short, sharply focused and easily renewed military intervention, has secured the power to dictate the terms of any possible peace in Syria. Again, post-Mao China is not moving towards becoming a Western-style economy or polity. Market reform, which everyone in the West expected would continue, is being set aside in order to consolidate the power of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. Each of these regimes faces large challenges – Russia the risk of a long period of low oil prices, China the hazards of economic slowdown. But in neither case is there any reason to suppose they will respond with policies of liberalisation: an increase in authoritarian repression (not necessarily unpopular) is far more likely.

Meanwhile, Western institutions – supposedly the endpoint of a global process of development – are also mutating. A type of illiberal democracy is on the march in post-communist Europe, while the European Union is in a state of paralysis and even disintegration. In these circumstances, the belief that liberal values are on “the right side of history” is an expression of blind faith.

The dangers of this faith are illustrated in Western policies towards Saudi ­Arabia – the country that has been at the centre of global jihadism. Liberals rail against Western policies that allowed the Saudi ambassador to join the march in support of Charlie Hebdo in Paris and enabled a Saudi representative to have a key role on the Human Rights Council at the UN. Certainly there is an element of black comedy in a regime that sentences a peaceful blogger to a thousand lashes and that denies elementary freedoms to its female population being touted as an authority on human rights. But this evident absurdity masks a more intractable truth, which liberals deny: there is no realistic prospect of human rights being respected in Saudi Arabia at any time in the foreseeable future. If the House of Saud is toppled, it will be replaced by something worse – a state of anarchy, followed by a regime that would enforce theocracy and promote jihadism more wholeheartedly and ruthlessly than the Saudis have done.

***

The role of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in promoting Wahhabism – a variant of Sunni fundamentalism that emerged in the desert region of Najd during the 18th century – is not in doubt. Nor are the affinities between the teachings of Wahhabism’s founder, Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92), and the most extreme jihadist movements today. ‘Abd al-Wahhab condemned the Islam of his day as decadent and impure. Practices such as Sufism and reverence for saints were idolatrous; anyone involved in them was not a Muslim but an infidel who could lawfully be killed. When the Ibn Saud clan adopted ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s teaching in the 1740s, this was the doctrine it accepted.

The genealogy of jihadist thinking is complex and includes important strands derived from radical Western ideologies such as Leninism and fascism. There are many varieties of jihadism, whose origins and identities are intensely contested, both by scholars and by the very groups. Some have described Isis as Salafist-jihadist – one of a host of groups holding to a fundamentalist version of Islam that were radicalised by the war in Afghanistan and joined conflicts in Iraq, Syria, the Russian Caucasus and elsewhere. Like al-Qaeda before it, Isis is a hybrid expressing many ideas and forces. Even so, there are many points of contact between ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabism and the ideas driving groups such as Isis.

Wahhabism might have remained a marginal current within Islam were it not for two events: the appropriation of ‘Abd al-Wahhab’s teaching as the theological source of state authority when the present Saudi kingdom was founded in the 1930s, and the oil wealth it accumulated in the second half of the 20th century, which has been used to export Wahhabism throughout the Muslim world, and to countries beyond it – including Belgium, where Saudi-funded Salafists have been active in many mosques.


The commitment to Wahhabism is essential in legitimating the Saudi state. It is also pivotal in the Saudi conflict with Shia Iran. Adhering to rival versions of Islam, the two states are locked in an escalating struggle for hegemony in the Middle East. But Western geopolitical strategies have played a part in enabling the Saudi state to serve as a channel for jihadism. When in February 1945 the then Saudi monarch, Abdul Aziz, met Franklin D Roosevelt on an American warship in the course of the president’s return from the Yalta Conference, the Saudi state became an integral part of the postwar Western power structure.

As an ally of the West, the kingdom has secured the flow of oil in exchange for a guarantee of its own security – a mutually advantageous arrangement, but one that has had some unfortunate consequences. By turning a blind eye to ways in which funds flowing from Saudi Arabia have promoted the beliefs that fuel jihadist movements (and also failing to admit the role of Pakistan, another supposed ally, in backing the Taliban in Afghanistan), Western governments ensured that the “war on terror” that followed the 11 September 2001 attacks would be a gruesome fiasco. (Fifteen of the 19 militants who carried out the 9/11 attacks were Saudi.)

The Saudi case is instructive for several reasons. For one thing, it demonstrates the continuing potency of religion in politics and war. Endemic conflict in the Middle East has many different sources, including inheritances from European colonialism, the follies of recent Western policies and geopolitical rivalries between the major regional powers. Even so, these conflicts are also wars of religion.

According to prevailing theories, when societies modernise they become more secular; over time, religious faith becomes a private matter. But this is to generalise from a highly specific history. Originating in the European wars of religion, secularisation is a late offshoot of Judaism and Christianity. (Nothing like the separation of church and state existed in ancient Greece or Rome, which lacked the idea of “religion” as a distinct sphere of life.) While Islam has produced regimes of pluralism and toleration, such as the one that existed in the Ottoman empire when Europe was still blighted by religious wars and persecution, there is no reason for thinking that Muslim cultures are going to embrace secularisation or liberal values, even over the long run. Attempting to export these practices and values to countries with very different histories has predictably counterproductive results.

***

The Saudi case is also instructive in demonstrating the vanity of liberal hopes of reform. The kingdom can no more be reconstituted on a liberal model than could Iraq, Libya or Syria. In every case, the regime and the state are closely intertwined: if you overthrow one, you destroy the other. In the Saudi case, the House of Saud is the Saudi state – the product of a strategic bargain between the ruling dynasty and Wahhabism. The predictable result of any attempt at reform would be to threaten this pact. At that point, Isis or some successor Salafist-jihadist group would step in as the embodiment of true Wahhabism. The monster the Saudis have fed would then ­devour them.

This is a danger of which the new Saudi king, Salman, seems all too aware, and may account for Saudi Arabia’s untypically direct involvement in Yemen and threats to put boots on the ground in Syria. There is a mood of mounting panic beneath these and other Saudi policies. Levering down the oil price through oversupply may be a tool in the Saudis’ attempt to maintain market share by bankrupting the US shale industry. But it is also a response to the re-emergence of Iran as an energy superpower. Burning rapidly through the surplus wealth that has helped the Saudis to buy off fundamentalist forces, it is a risky tactic. As the former diplomat John Jenkins wrote in this magazine last year, the Saudis feel besieged on all sides. In these circumstances, the kingdom’s ruling dynasty is not going to compound the dangers it faces by implementing liberal reforms that could undermine the basis of its very existence.

When they insist that the future for the Middle East lies in moving towards liberal democracy, progressive thinkers demonstrate a refusal to learn from history – and not only that of the Middle East. Where some sort of democracy can be found in the region – as in Iran and the rump state of Iraq – it is of an illiberal variety that promotes sectarianism. The regimes of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Carlos Menem in Argentina were democratic inasmuch as they recognised the will of the people as expressed in elections to be the ultimate source of political authority; but they also recognised few limitations on the powers of government. Illiberal democracy is a recurring feature of modern political life which is now under­going a resurgence.


Nineteenth-century liberals recognised that democracy comes in various forms, and dreaded the version advocated by Rousseau, in which an inspired lawgiver interprets and implements the will of the people. Nowadays such fears are dismissed as elitist. But the old-fashioned liberals grasped a vital truth: popular government has no necessary connection with the freedom of individuals or minorities. Of course, liberals today will say this can be remedied by installing the rule of constitutional rights. Such systems are fragile, however, and count for nothing when large sections of society are indifferent or actively hostile to liberal values. Where this is the case, democracy means not much more than the tyranny of the majority.

In Europe the dissociation of democracy from liberalism is a rising trend. Until recently it was possible to view Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary – even though he has described it as an illiberal democracy akin to those of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey – as a one-off affair. Since the election of the Law and Justice party in Poland last October, that is no longer possible. Orbán has used various devices – including announcing a referendum, which he will undoubtedly win, authorising him to reject EU migrant quotas – to transform the Hungarian political system into a type of democratic authoritarianism.

The new Polish regime has gone further, altering beyond recognition institutions that were put in place in the country after the fall of communism. The political independence of the constitutional court, the judiciary and the civil service has been curtailed and pluralism in the media attacked. Echoes of a dark past can be heard in reports that the government is considering stripping Princeton’s distinguished, Polish-born Holocaust scholar Jan Tomasz Gross of the Order of Merit because he has noted the participation of parts of the Polish population in anti-Semitic mass murders during the years of Nazi occupation.

Linking illiberal democracy in Europe with developments in the Middle East, Turkey, under the leadership of Erdogan, has swung towards popular authoritarianism, clamping down on freedom in the media and expanding his powers as president to enable greater control of the machinery of state. Brussels condemns these developments but is powerless to do anything about them. Indeed, the deal to block migrant flows that Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, is promoting with Turkey would strengthen Erdogan’s power – without in any way changing Turkey from a semi-failed state that treats the Kurds as a greater threat than Isis. Whatever pretensions the EU may have had as a guarantor of liberal values have been shown to be practically worthless.

The shift to illiberal democracy in Europe (and in the United States, through the rise of Donald Trump) has a number of causes, but the migrant crisis is the most powerful one. Merkel’s declaration that migrants were welcome was at first lauded by liberals throughout the world, while the refusal by post-communist countries to accept EU migrant quotas provoked indignation in Brussels. Yet the progressive states of Scandinavia are little different: Sweden is apparently ready now to reject large numbers of asylum applications and deport many of those who have already arrived. There is a logic to these responses that liberals are unwilling to understand. Open borders, liberal democracy and highly developed welfare states are not simultaneously sustainable. Except where it adjoined the Romanov and Ottoman empires, pre-1914 Europe could be largely borderless because democracy was limited and the welfare state only just beginning. In Britain, controls on immigration were put in place with the Aliens Act 1905. But in continental Europe the chief drivers of immigration control were the First World War and the ensuing rise of self-determining nation states from the ruins of collapsed empires.

Today, large-scale immigration comes up against resistance from majorities that see migrants as threats to welfare provision (and their wage levels). Lacking democratic legitimacy, having no effective control over its perimeter borders and responsible for savage rollbacks in welfare as part of its austerity policies, the EU is finding that this is a trilemma it is incapable of resolving. As a result, the task has fallen to national governments, which have responded by closing borders or introducing emergency controls. It will not be surprising if Germany – following Merkel’s noble-sounding but ill-judged declaration, which empowered the far right in regional elections in March – soon follows suit.

The advance of illiberal democracy in post-communist Europe is part of a larger shift. A continent-wide process of “Orbán­isation” is under way, in which power is leaking away from the EU. Schengen has in effect collapsed, and given that reinstating it would increase flows of migrants to a degree that cannot be democratically legitimated, it will surely not return. However, closing Europe’s borders now will not prevent further terrorist attacks. Thousands of jihadist militants, battle-hardened in Iraq and Syria, may already have slipped into European countries. European institutions lack the capacities that are needed to monitor these flows and take effective action. Given the disintegrative forces that are at work in the European Union, this is not a fully soluble problem.

***


Europe is ill-prepared to deal with hyper-terrorism, but the phenomenon is hardly unprecedented. Modern history abounds with violence fuelled by apocalyptic myths, not always explicitly religious in nature. When in his 1907 novel, The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad depicted the hyper-terrorist of his day, he presented the reader with the Professor, a cere­bral fanatic who announces “doctorally” that the only way humankind can be roused from ignorance and lethargy is through acts of sheer terror. “Madness and despair!” he cries. “Give me that for a lever, and I’ll move the world.” Dedicated to reason and science, the Professor has concluded that both reform and the seizure of power in a conventional revolution are futile. Yet a new world is within reach if terror is applied methodically, and with a ruthless ferocity that seems insane.

Conrad’s Professor and his fellow revolutionists were representative of their time. Especially in Russia, where the casualties (mostly tsarist officials) numbered in the many thousands, the early years of the 20th century were marked by a type of spectacular violence that has striking affinities with the hyper-terrorism of today. Granted, there are important differences. The anarchists did not target the civilian population as Isis does. The myths that possessed anarchists in their campaigns of assassination were not religious; they were secular myths of social transformation. Most importantly, early-20th-century anarchism never acquired a mass base. Violent jihadist movements cannot claim the support of a majority of Muslims anywhere in the world. In the regions it has conquered so far in Iraq and Syria as well as Libya, Isis rules by instilling fear. But no other jihadist organisation so successfully combines ultra-violent fundamentalism with hypermodern propaganda methods and the business structures of a global criminal cartel. It is not unrealistic to think that, in some contexts – a destabilised Saudi Arabia, for instance – a group like Isis could attract significant popular support.

Although liberal thinkers believe that terror declines as societies modernise, the reality is that terror and modernisation have more often gone hand in hand. The aim of the Jacobin terror in revolutionary France was the creation of a modern state. If the violent suppression of the peasant revolt in the Vendée is included, the casualties ran into the hundreds of thousands.

Lenin avowedly followed the Jacobin example when he used the Cheka to create a modern state in Russia. One of the factors that distinguished Nazism and fascism from conventional tyrannies was the belief that a new society could be fashioned by the systematic use of terror. Violent jihadism has more in common with these modern totalitarian movements than is commonly supposed.

The terrorist threat in Europe today seems unique only because these precedents have been largely forgotten by many people. Calling jihadist violence nihilistic is a symptom of this amnesia. At present, “nihilism” is a vacuous concept whose function is to block out from awareness any evil that cannot be fitted into the ruling progressive narrative. The effect is to underestimate the gravity of the danger. The next wave of hyper-terrorism will not be diverted by education campaigns or by mind-changing therapies. Uncovering members of jihadist networks and those who sponsor and recruit them is a vital task – one that may have been significantly advanced by the reported leak to German intelligence and Western media of Isis documents giving away the identities of more than 20,000 recruits. But the greater danger is of whole societies descending into deeper and more intractable conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, possible upheaval in Saudi Arabia, and other large-scale convulsions that cannot be foreseen. In these conditions, if Isis weakens in coming years it will not be long before new jihadist groups take its place.

Hyper-terrorism today is the product of an interaction of tangled geopolitical conflicts with the resurgence of apocalyptic religion. Dealing with the threat requires an understanding of this combustible mix. The narrative of modernisation that imagines terrorism can be countered by exporting Western institutions impedes any clear perception of the scale of the threat. The ongoing attacks that are now certain continue a history of violence that has shaped the modern world. If hyper-terrorism is here to stay, one reason is that it never went away.




Muslims and the Challenge of Historiography: An Interview with Salman Sayyid (Part One)

Apr 01 2016
by Junaid S. Ahmad

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/24190/muslims-and-the-challenge-of-historiography_an-int

From the perspective of an increasing number of Muslim intellectuals, discussions around the prospects of Islamic societies charting their own political futures are fraught with pressures to engage in the application of Western liberal (and neo-liberal) values as a means of validating such intellectual projects. Thus, the challenge facing thinkers in these societies is one of de-linking Eurocentric assumptions from internal discourses on autonomy of Muslims. In the first of this two-part interview with Salman Sayyid, author of Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order, Sayyid proposes the steps necessary for “clearing” space to enter into such discussions. In particular, he highlights the need for Muslims to understand the role of history in the formation of political agency and calls for critical engagement with the historiography of Islamic societies. Junaid Ahmad conducted the interview in Lahore, Pakistan. He was assisted by Sania Sufi and Osama Iqbal.

Junaid Ahmad (JA): Dr. Sayyid, your earlier work, in particular A Fundamental Fear, was a scathing critique of existing accounts the rise of Islamism as well as what it signifies. It was a bold and innovative engagement with “critical theory” and the question of Islam and Islamism. But in some ways, your latest book is even more provocative and audacious—and not simply because of its title, Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order. It deconstructs the Eurocentrism embedded in the mantras of Western power today, or the discourse you term "Westernesse." One of the functions that you say this recent work of yours serves is to offer a "clearing" of/for the seemingly omnipresent orientalist tropes to which Muslims are forced to respond. Can you explain this notion/function of "clearing" that you speak of?

Salman Sayyid (SS): In the context of the argument of Recalling the Caliphate by clearing I mean the opening up of a space that allows for us to have sustained conversation about Muslim autonomy. Anyone trying to engage in a serious manner with the possibility of Muslim autonomy is immediately confronted with a series of challenges. These challenges turn and divert any consideration of Muslim autonomy into a conversation about secularism or liberalism or relativism, etc. For a Muslim to speak requires him or her to answer a series of questions which are leading, if not misleading, so one can easily become trapped and diverted in trying to demonstrate that Islam is not inherently misogynist or Muslims are not fundamentally anti-intellectual etc. So clearing is both a disclosure and a dismissal. It is a dismissal of the arguments of those who oppose Muslim autonomy, and the disclosure of a possibility of Muslim autonomy that is obscured by Islamophobia.

JA: You are right to point out that many Muslims become trapped in the first part of this “clearing” process, or solely responding towards Orientalist discourse. Since neoliberal institutions of power—whether academic or political—shape dialogue, it becomes even harder for any genuine discussion of Muslim autonomy to exist. How can Muslim intellectuals engage in such a conversation if they are lost amidst constant reactionary dialogue? Does your latest book offer any advice?

SS: The task of clearing is not something that is done once and forever. Like the struggle against dust, it is unrelenting, but it cannot become an end in itself. A discussion of Muslim autonomy has to include both critical and poetic elements. The advice that Recalling the Caliphate offers is that the task of Muslim autonomy cannot wait for an auspicious conjunction, but needs to begin here and now. This task has to include not (only) more exhortations to greater piety, but also broadening and enriching the sense of the Islamicate. Muslim autonomy requires not only Muslims to know their deen but also to know their history. I would argue that without a historical sensibility any understanding of our deen will be stilted, and simply reproduce and reinforce Orientalism.

In general Muslims are more literate in their canonical heritage than their history. It is the recovery of Muslims as world-makers and history-makers that is crucial to this task of Muslim autonomy. In practical terms it means challenging Eurocentric historiography and learning the history of Muslim agency. It means changing the frame of reference bequeathed to us by the colonial order and internalized by the Westoxicated, and presented as the truth. It means that those who support Muslim autonomy have to work with a purpose to articulate a counter-narrative rather than being apologists for Eurocentrism.

JA: Can you speak about how the post-9/11 and “war on terror” world order has attempted to mould and shape Muslim discourse, and specifically demonstrate how the problematic of “Muslim apologia” actually plays out on certain social and political issues? For example, there has been much inquiry into whether Islam is compatible with democracy. Many of course believe that is a useful discussion to be pursued by Muslim societies. You however problematize the entire debate around democracy. Please elaborate.

SS: I argue that democracy is best understood as a form of “good governance” specific to a particular historical trajectory and cultural formation. So, for instance, the fact that European colonial empires of countries such as Netherlands, France or Britain are presented as being democratic even when the overwhelming majority of their populations had no significant political rights. This is why democracy refers not so much to a system of government but rather whether a particular country is considered to be pro-Western or not. This is why it is so difficult to imagine a country that is considered to be simultaneously anti-Western and democratic. This is why when the Palestinian people elect Hamas in fair and free elections the United States and European Union cut off any aid to occupied Palestine and work to undermine and overthrow the Hamas government.

Given that the signifier of democracy is deeply attached to Western identity, I am not convinced that fighting to stick that signifier to another ensemble of practices and institutions is that useful (e.g. the claims that shura is democracy). I think such practices are rather timid and defeatist. I would like to suggest something else.

The “war on terror” and the associated austerity programmes have helped to create a neoliberal and neoconservative “historic bloc.” The consequence of this hegemonic formation is that space for dissent, difference, for insulation from arbitrary authority is beginning to shrink. For example, in Britain legislation has been introduced which threatens to take away children from parents deemed to be radical Muslims. It was reported on 27 July 2015 that four hundred children under twelve were referred to the British authorities as being radicalized, including a three-year old. The legislation leaves rather vague what is considered to be radicalization. A senior member of the British police suggested signs of being a radical Muslim may include: not celebrating Christmas, not drinking alcohol, supporting the boycott of Israel. All these restrictions which go against a common understanding of democratic practice do not seem to dent claims made by British politicians that they are a democratic country. This evacuation is producing a form of totalitarianism made tolerable by modern technology’s ability to extract information and exert control over ordinary people’s lives by stealth.

An opportunity now exists for Muslims to reclaim a social space insulated from the intrusions of the surveillance state and unaccountable mega-corporations. Muslim societies can aspire to be attuned to their pre-colonized history in which the exercise of authority was limited. Such a goal does not require many resources, nor does it demand much expenditure. It only requires a willingness to institutionalize the incompatibility between zulm and everyday expressions of Muslimness, and it in this light that we can best capture the sense of the shura not as the application of an ossified rulebook, but rather as a means of insulating people from exercise of arbitrary power.

JA: One of the constant reminders throughout your work is the difference between historiography and history. You have become well known for the way in which you describe a certain Eurocentric narrative as going from "Plato to NATO," a historical account which highlights a certain teleology and sequence of events that posits the “West is/as best.” Speak a little bit about the function of Eurocentric historiography in this regard, and the effects it has had on the non-Western world, and on the Muslim world particularly.

SS: It is important to understand the role of history in the formation of political agency. Imagine a person without a memory—to what extent would they be a person? Imagine the loss of memory is not just forgetting their name, failing to recognize faces of people close to them, but even forgetting how to speak, forgetting what words mean. We would wonder whether such a person could function independently–even if physically they had no other impairment. Memory is not just about the past: it is rather the possibility of being able to act in the past, by orienting oneself to the future.

History is a kind of a memory of a collective. But of course, history is not an exact reproduction of the past. Such a task is impossible, not only empirically, but more importantly, because a straightforward record of the past would be meaningless. Any such record would need to select what constitutes the elements of a record. History is not a straightforward record of the past, but a reconstruction of a record of the past. Historiography is simply a recognition that all history is not a transparent disclosure of the past, it is a rhetorical art which seeks to influence its audience’s view of the world by changing their understanding of representations of the past.

For Muslims the challenge of historiography is two-fold: Islamicate history has been replaced by nationalist historiography. It is becoming more and more difficult to tell the history of the Ummah and as a consequence it becomes difficult to project the Ummah into the future. For example, take the history of Pakistan. It is dominantly framed in the context of South Asia–which reflects the boundaries produced by colonial cartography. As a consequence Pakistan appears as an illegitimate presence, in an essentially “Indian (i.e., “Hindu”) sub-continent.” According to this Indological perspective the Pakistan project appears as an affront to the natural order of things. Hence, Pakistan’s formation remains obscured by a focus on the minutiae of negotiations and play of vanities, unable to account for the Pakistan movement as a collective will. Or take the way in which nationalist historiographies in the Balkans and Levant and Anatolia have converged to deny the legitimacy of the Ottoman state and read it as an empire similar to European colonial-imperial formations.

The second problem as you mention is to do with the nature of Eurocentric world history, which determines the direction of travel and destination of all societies. The closer the society is to becoming Westernized, the more it is considered to be progressive, modern, i.e., on the right side of history. Given that Europe/Christendom is in many ways invented by being contrasted with the Islamicate, the price for Muslims to become part of history’s stream is to become ex-Muslims. Thus Muslims are stripped of their history, and destined to become like people without memories, unable to act in present or project themselves into the future.

JA: Many liberals argue that religion and state should be separate in order to ensure equal treatment for all. You say that such a reductionist binary, where religion is deemed as backwards and secularism as liberatory, is based on European Enlightenment thought and not Islam. Could you please elaborate?

SS: In Christian Europe most non-Christian religious minorities were progressively eliminated often with great violence. In Muslim lands non-Muslim religious minorities have generally persisted. Until the end of the eighteenth century, with all possible caveats, as a general observation, if you were a religious or ethnic minority, you would most probably be better off living under Muslim rule rather than under Christian or European rule. Unfortunately, we tend to read the links between minority rights and “religious” based states through the prism of Christian history projected on to the rest of the world. Nor is it the case that non-religious states are less likely to undermine the status of religious minorities, as the experience of European colonial regimes and Communist regions demonstrates. There is no necessary link between a state based on religion and the prosecution of religious minorities. It is not whether a state is based on religion or not which is the issue but rather how religion and state are being conceptualized in such statements.

The category of religion is basically an Enlightenment reading of Western Christianity. In relation to this reading, religion is defined and that definition is used to classify the rest of the world. The transformation of a description of a particular European historical experience into a universal axiom is a hallmark of Eurocentrism. Eurocentric liberalism I would contend has very little contribution to make to the future of the Islamicate, or to the people of Muslimistan. Reading Lolita in Tehran or Islamabad or Istanbul or Djakarta or Cairo does not mean you are not parroting Orientalism. This is why it comes as little surprise that Westoxicated liberals have nearly always been de facto firm supporters of so many tyrannies throughout Muslimistan.

It has to be remembered that liberalism has historically been compatible with racism, imperialism and colonialism. Liberalism without a commitment to a popular agency is not necessarily an emancipatory force.

JA: How can Turkey be seen as a model for other Muslim countries? Is it possible to learn something from the Turkish experience and maybe apply to other Muslim countries such as Pakistan?

SS: The question is rarely of finding the right model. Clearly, the success of the AK Party in transforming Turkey in a period of ten years can serve as inspiration and an illustration at the possibility of reform through electoral success. I do not see how it can be a model that is to be applied. Firstly, the idea of applying models is the hallmark of technocrats, and the reduction of the political to mere administration.

In countries like Pakistan there has been a long history of borrowing “off-the-shelf” plans and models, and looking for technical solutions to what are fundamentally political problems (e.g. the Punjab government’s use of neo-liberal technocrat advisors such as Michael Barber to run its education system by imitating the measures followed by Blair-Brown-Cameron governments). Technocrats can administer and implement whatever the conventional wisdom is, but they cannot create or fundamentally innovate, or give purpose. Pakistan and similar Muslim countries which have the potential to be more than the patrimony of a clan or a dynasty need a paradigm of their own, based on the radical appreciation of their own situation, circumstances and ambitions. Pakistan has to have a model that reflects its needs and the needs of its people and recognizes the distinct characteristics of the country.

Secondly, the reforms that Erdogan and his colleagues have enacted have been made possible because they have an agency capable of such political work. In Muslimistan you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of movements, groups, or parties that are capable of being agents of sustained and serious reforms. So before Pakistan models itself on Turkey, you have to ask who will do this modelling? What movement, group, party is willing to undertake a radical reform of the existing system? If reformers in Pakistan or other Muslim countries were serious about learning the lesson of Turkey, they would learn the importance of having a popular political party that can organize and mobilize. A political party which can articulate a narrative that gives the country a purpose and directions so that reforms are coherent and accumulative rather than haphazard and transitory. What is needed is an organization or organisations which are serious and committed to reform, both socio-economic and intellectual and cultural, rather than simply making payments to international creditors.

Thirdly, one of the most important factors in Turkey (and also Iran), which is often overlooked, is that neither of these countries were fully colonized in the way that most countries in Muslimistan were. The colonization they experienced came as an auto-colonialism in the form of Kemalism. It is not a coincidence that the “Islamist” revolution in Iran and the transformation in Turkey have been able to create a space for the exercise of national sovereignty in these countries. Without sovereignty, democracy is limited (since it can always be trumped by diktats from abroad) and therefore the ability to formulate meaningful reforms is highly restricted. For Pakistan and other similar countries decolonization is a necessary precondition for meaningful reform. So if you want to imitate the success of Turkey in the last decade, then you commit to a program of decolonial reforms and organizations, and understand the context of the Turkish transformation.

JA: You mention that populist parties are a necessary step towards any concrete, positive transformation in Muslimistan. In countries such as Pakistan where the masses tend to vote based on patronage, and not ideology, how do we integrate Islamism in such a society? In other words, what is a response to those who regard Islamism as a utopia rather than a practical political outcome? Are there any specific challenges for states such as Pakistan where imagining Islamic decolonial spaces often time seems bleak due to a complete breakdown of social and political institutions?

SS: First, we need to stop succumbing to the staples of Orientalist scholarship which continue to dominate the analysis of Pakistan. It is not the case that electoral politics in Pakistan can be seen as uniquely conditioned by patronage rather than ideology—such is the case everywhere in the world, including the United States and United Kingdom. There are of course differences in the structures of patronage–but it is not the case that the voters there are more ideological than in other places. Second, if someone is interested in the well-being of Pakistan and its people, than they need to be clearer about the challenges that Pakistanis face. This means not to exaggerate the difficulties. Hope is necessary for any program of improvement. There is no complete breakdown of social and political institutions. If that was the case, Pakistan would be like Somalia, Libya, Iraq or Syria–it is not. The problem is of the political system rather than the raw capacity of the state itself. In which case, reforms and improvements have to be directed at the political processes. This means the recognition that electoral victory is the culmination of a process of intellectual and cultural reform. It means that instead of focusing on a figure like Erdogan or Khomeini, we need to see them in the context of developments of wide-ranging counter-narratives, populated by intellectuals, activists, and civil society organisations. Imagining a decolonial future for Pakistan is a way of inscribing hope for something better. Without such an inscription the alternative offer—even if couched in the lexicon of a new Pakistan—will remain unrealized.

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Junkie jihadis and the narcotic ways of war

https://aeon.co/ideas/junkie-jihadis-and-the-narcotic-ways-of-war

ISIS has revelled in its brutality. Reports of ISIS fighters, jihadist terrorists and insurgents fuelled by drugs on their murderous rampages have generated outrage and astonishment. The vision of intoxicated jihadists adds an almost inconceivable level of fright, but it should not. There is nothing exceptional in ISIS fighters popping pills. Drugs and warfare have always gone hand in hand – from Homeric warriors to Wehrmacht troops, and more recently US pilots during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Though the use of intoxicants by non-Western irregulars is often portrayed in the media as unique, the fact is that Western soldiers have been fighting while high for much of history.

There are differences. ISIS’s substance of choice is Captagon, a powerful stimulant metabolised in the body to form amphetamine and theophylline. It makes for a perfect combat drug that numbs fear, induces bravado, enhances strength, promotes alertness and alleviates pain. Jihadists are reported to consume it pervasively, while also pumping themselves full of cocaine, heroin and hashish. It’s a potent cocktail, transforming young men into highly stimulated, ferocious and seemingly crazed fighters. It engenders feelings of invincibility and diminishes fear, including fear of death. In short, ISIS fighters are high on two powerful intoxicants: jihad and psychostimulants.

Adversaries often compare intoxicated jihadists to zombies. In this way, they’re made to seem inhuman, an obvious mistake, but one that helps soldiers and witnesses to digest their incredible brutality. A Muslim Brotherhood militant in Syria recalls: ‘Some people take so much, if you shoot them, they won’t drop.’ Fuelled by Captagon, jihadists continue fighting even when gravely wounded, similar to the virulent and instinct-driven walking dead. This was precisely what US Marines experienced in November 2004 in the battle of Fallujah – the insurgents they engaged with were so heavily doped up on amphetamines and cocaine that they continued fighting despite severe injury. When the standard firing procedure to aim at the body failed, the Marines were ordered to refocus on head shots. Incidentally, this same tactic is suggested in Max Brooks’s book The Zombie Survival Guide (2003).

While toxicological analyses of the dead terrorists who carried out the November 2015 attacks in Paris did not detect Captagon, the media remained suspicious that the French government was involved in a cover-up. In fact, much of the hostage and witness testimonies revealed, as reported for example by Le Figaro, a different account of the attacks: ‘They looked like zombies, as if they were drugged’ and ‘Drugged, unprepared, really tense.’

Intoxicants seem to have become inherent to terrorism. Take two further examples. The Chechens who in September 2004 seized a Russian school in Beslan were heavy heroin and morphine addicts. During the three-day siege, they ran out of supplies and, suffering from withdrawal symptoms, turned extremely ruthless and massacred 186 children at the end. Separately, the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, who perpetrated a series of frenzied attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, enhanced their performance with cocaine and steroids, enabling them to hold out against Indian Special Forces for nearly 60 hours.

If junkie jihadists are described as erratic, how then should we account for the behaviour of Achilles, an archetypal Western warrior? Homer portrays him as a frenzied soldier experiencing extreme mood swings, losing control over his emotions and wreaking astonishing slaughter. What would his neurochemical brain analysis tell us about the foundational Western military hero? Achilles certainly seems high most of the time.

By any measure, Homeric heroes are few and far between. It is mere men who have to be roused to arms. For a combatant to overcome survival instincts and innate fears, cope with borderline stress, and make sacrifices for a greater purpose – be it a city state, nation or religion – he or she needs extra motivation. The oldest and most popular intoxicant of war was alcohol. For centuries, governmental rations of rum (the British), vodka (the Russians/Soviets), wine (the French), beer (the Germans) or whiskey (the Americans in the Civil War) inspired ‘liquid courage’ propelling troops into battle. During the First World War, the British, French, and German military administered cocaine to their soldiers. The British Army, for example, used a medicine called ‘Forced March’ that contained cocaine and kola nut extract.

The Second World War brought amphetamines to the frontline with the Nazis and Japanese boosting their troops with methamphetamine, and the British issuing amphetamine tablets. The US has also supplied its soldiers with amphetamines on many occasions – in the Second World War (administering 250-500 million amphetamine pills), during the Korean conflict (additionally issuing meth), and in the Vietnam War (in 1966-69, armed forces used 225 million dextroamphetamine tablets).

Of course, soldiers have also motivated themselves with their own intoxicants. Drug-use is simply a response to the uncertainties and horrors of combat. When the battle ends, mind-altering substances can provide a healing benefit, too. Relaxation might be elusive when soldiers are hounded by traumatic memories. Drugs can help. Far from being anomalous, it would be more astonishing if the military had not reached for pharmacological support. For, as the British military historian John Keegan said, intoxicants have been, and will continue to be, a key combat motivator. And as pharmacogenetics slowly opens the door to individualised pharmacology, the future military might well be designing drugs tailored to individual soldiers – bespoke for their genetic profiles.

So it should come as no surprise that jihadist fighters rely on chemical courage. It works the same as real courage, even if it is distinctly unheroic.


Lukasz Kamienski is a lecturer in political science at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora at Jagiellonian University, Poland. He is the author of Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War (2016).

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UK-trained navy officer who joined Isil turns supergrass after arrest by Kuwaiti authorities

by Josie Ensor, beirut 11 JULY 2016 • 7:00PM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/11/uk-navy-officer-who-joined-isil-turns-supergrass-after-arrest-by/

A British-trained navy officer who joined Islamic State has turned supergrass after being arrested by Kuwaiti authorities, becoming one of its most senior figures to hand over intelligence on the terrorist group.

Kuwait-born Ali Omar Mohammad Alosaimi, 27, was picked up on the Iraq-Syria border on July 4, according to local reports.



Alosaimi, who had three years of merchant navy officers' training at South Tyneside College’s Marine School - one of the UK’s most prestigious maritime colleges - left his home in South Shields for Syria in April 2014.

Alosaimi, who has since married a Syrian woman with whom he has a child, is now cooperating with Kuwaiti authorities, who said he has confessed to playing a senior role within Isil.

He said he was put in charge of oil fields in Islamic State-held territory around Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in northeast Syria, where he managed exports. He said the group's leaders had chosen him for his proficiency in English, expert engineering knowledge and previous experience at a state-owned Kuwaiti oil company.

Isil seized control of the Syrian government’s most lucrative fields after capturing vast swathes of the east of the country in the summer of 2014. It appointed some of its most skilled foreign jihadists to run the oil business - the group's biggest money-maker.

Alosaimi, who used the nom de guerre Abu Turab al-Kuwaiti, revealed to interrogators how Isil smuggles oil and sells it in black market to regional buyers as well as international traders at a lower price to undercut the competition. He also handed over names of individuals involved in the trade.

He said he had a “good relationship” with President Bashar al-Assad's regime, which bought oil from the Islamist group, and claimed to have attended meetings with senior Syrian officials as well as Iranian intelligence officers.

Kuwait, a US ally, has passed the intelligence on to the international coalition fighting Isil.

Alosaimi is one of only a very small number of captured senior Isil figures that has provided intelligence on the group and will likely prove crucial in the coalition's targeting of its oil trade.

Oil is the largest source of funding for Isil, which is thought to still make as much as $30million (£23m) a month from sales despite frequent aerial attacks by the coalition.

Alosaimi’s testimony also provides some of the most concrete evidence yet of the deals cut between the Assad regime and its enemy Isil.

According to his uncle, Ali was radicalised after Abdullah, his younger brother killed in battle in Iraq in late 2013, was killed. “He seemed a changed man after his brother’s death,” he said. “He grew a beard and did not talk to anyone like he used to. He used to call his family every fortnight but he visited at the end of 2013 and that was the last we heard from him.”

A few months later he travelled to Syria, His name appears on leaked Isil "entrance forms" seen by the Telegraph, in which he described himself as a “navy officer in Britain.”

Kyle Orton, a Middle East analyst at the Henry Jackson Society think tank, said it was unusual for Western fighters to be made privy to such high-level information, and that the intelligence was a coup for the coalition.

“The capture of Alosaimi provides a valuable source of information in the war against the Islamic State,” he said. “Such information is unfortunately rare, as under the coalition's current policy of airstrikes, there is no mechanisms for the gathering of information from inside the jihadist networks.”